“Because… I don’t know. I think maybe she can help me.”
“And I can’t?”
“As a prisoner like me? No.”
Chopra hardened his tone. “She’s come to rob our country.”
Hussein shook his head. “
“And you’ll let her get away with that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Once we get her inside, she’ll keep us alive until she moves out all the gold and you give her the locations of the oil reserves. After we get out of the building, she’ll kill us. So during her operation is when we must make our move. I know the vault very well. And the tunnels.”
“If you run, I’m not sure I’ll go with you,” said Hussein.
“Then you’ll die. And your father’s dream will die with you.”
For a moment, Chopra had thought he’d seen tears begin to form in the boy’s eyes…
Now Chopra sat in the hotel, staring at the sleeping boy and listening to the Snow Maiden speak softly into her cell phone. He looked to the window, thought of throwing himself through the glass and plunging to the street below. It was a reckless thought brought on by self-pity. He closed his eyes, and there, in the darkness, he saw the first of the three angels with long metal wings and fire running beneath their skins.
“She is afraid. And you need to exploit that,” said one of the men, his voice echoing.
“How?”
“You know how.”
“No, I don’t! Tell me!”
“She’s only a little girl.” The angel smiled and vanished, and Chopra opened his eyes to find the boy staring at him.
“You were talking,” he said. “You woke me up.”
Brent and his people reached the Gold Tower parking garage entrance exactly twenty-one seconds before the trucks arrived. He, Lakota, and Schleck remained at the entrance to observe while the others fell back to defensive positions deeper within the facility. The vehicles weren’t military at all but a pair of Mercedes SUVs, and out hopped a pair of men from each. They wore conventional MOPP 4 gear that made them resemble old-school combatants. MOPP stood for Mission Oriented Protective Posture and Brent couldn’t remember what the hell the four stood for, but had read about how confining, restrictive, and nearly impossible it was to operate with all that junk hanging from your face and limbs.
He used the helmet’s camera to zoom in as the men pointed up at the damaged cameras mounted to the buildings. They glanced around, as though suddenly suspicious, then fell back to their vehicles.
“We need to make contact with these guys,” he told Lakota.
“Take us to your leader,” she responded in a mock alien voice.
“Exactly.”
“I’ll work with Voeckler.”
“All right.” Brent made a circle motion with his finger, brought up his roster, and tapped on the avatars of Schleck and Riggs. “Hey, guys. You’re cleared to head up top. Riggs, you stay here, and Schleck, you head next door. Let me know if you have any problems getting up there.”
“If the backup generators are down, it’ll be a long walk up to the roof,” said the sniper.
“Just keep me posted.”
Brent shifted to Thomas’s avatar and tapped on it. “Mr. Voeckler, you’ll be accompanied by Copeland and Daugherty. Get your sticky cams in place, then hand over command to Schoolie.”
“I’m on it,” said the Splinter Cell.
“And then, while you’re working on communications, I’ve got another job for you. You’ll recon that entire vault. Alone. You’re a spy. Do what spies do. Why? Because I don’t trust blueprints. I trust you.”
Thomas’s tone grew more enthusiastic. “Nice. I won’t let you down.”
“No, you won’t. All right, Bravo and Delta teams, down to level four. On your HUDs. You’ll set up the tents. Couple million tons of concrete and glass should help us from glowing green.”
“Ghost Lead, this is Riggs. Backup generators are down over here. Going to be a long morning, and this ain’t no stairway to heaven, over.”
Brent patched into her camera and saw the endless flight of stairs hanging overhead, the ceiling lost in the distant shadows. “You’re a true warrior.”
“I know that.” She groaned. “Could be worse. I could be wearing heels.”
Brent remembered her appearance at the cycle team victory party back in France, and he wished she hadn’t reminded him of how breathtaking she’d looked.
Schleck checked in and jarred Brent back to reality. He was walking up as well.
And then, before Brent could issue another order or make another observation of their operational zone, a priority message flashed in his HUD, origin Ghost Recon Command, Fort Bragg. The data box opened to show Colonel Susan Grey. Then another box opened, part of a conference communication, and suddenly Brent was staring at both his immediate superior and General Scott Mitchell, who spoke curtly.
“Captain, listen carefully. There’s been an unprecedented security breach on our end — and we believe it may have a direct impact on your mission.”
TWENTY
The Snow Maiden finished her phone conversation with Patti and plopped down on the bed. “We’ll be here for a while,” she told Chopra and the boy.
“Why?”
“No more questions.” She took a deep breath and wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn’t. She stared at the pistol, lying a few inches from her hand.
They saw it, too, but they only sat there, watching.
“I guess I should say thank you.” Her voice cracked as she spoke, a rare sign of weakness.
“For what?” asked Chopra, furrowing his brow.
“You could have made this a lot more difficult.”
He snorted. “We should have.”
“Those people you work for,” began Hussein. “You’ll give them all the money?”
“I said no more questions.”
“You started the conversation,” said Hussein.
She grinned crookedly. “So I did.”
“They get the gold, the oil reserves, everything?” asked the boy.
“That’s what they think.”
“You have another plan?”
She took a deep breath. “I have lots of plans.”
In fact, she had considered stealing the gold for herself, but once again engaging in an operation that complex and pulling it off at the last moment was improbable, to say the least. Then again, you never knew how the radioactive winds of fate could blow…
Patti had indicated that a militia force was occupying the city. The Snow Maiden had told her that she had no plans to infiltrate a heavily fortified building with an old man and a boy. Patti had said that she and Fedorovich had already put plans in motion that would allow the Snow Maiden’s convoy and twelve-man “work team” (in reality a Chinese special forces team) to arrive at the vault site without facing resistance.
“How?” she’d asked.
“Your old friend Haussler.”
